Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest
Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary
The chimps had a great time at their housewarming party today. Here are a few photos – more photos and video to come.
Annie enjoys some cattails:
Burrito opens his new lunchbox:
Foxie found a new doll, but hasn’t given up on Trixie:
Jamie got dressed up for the occasion:
Jody inspects her new pinwheel:
Negra with a flip flop:
And as the party wound down, Missy fell asleep wearing her sunglasses on top of her head:
Well, it’s been a busy Saturday! Here’s an opportunity to spend a quiet minute with Jamie and Foxie. In this video you can see them grooming each other. Grooming is a good way to build and maintain social bonds. Though sometimes it doesn’t seem like it, we humans do a lot of the same thing – think of how a mother might play with her child’s hair, or how reassuring it can be feel to hold hands with a loved one. Building social bonds left and right!
Meals for the chimpanzees are served in the front rooms, but we figure it’s important to have changes and surprises amidst the routine, so we set up a frozen watermelon forage in the playroom after breakfast this morning. Sarah had frozen some watermelon with a long tube sticking out and tied it to the caging of the barn doors. When Burrito discovered it, he produced some of the most unreal food squeaks I’ve ever heard! Check out the video below. Oh, and speaking of surprises, we’re really excited about Sunday’s party for the chimps!! Thank you to everyone who got toys for the chimpanzees, and needed items for the humans to take care of them, off of the Target and Amazon wish lists.
These are of Jody enjoying her night package treat bag last night. I caught some pretty cute faces in between her chewing. 
Well, Sarah and I discussed it this morning and decided on the name Trixie for Foxie’s Troll doll. Thanks for all of the suggestions!!Trixie is still with Foxie – day five of their relationship, I believe. Here is a photo from yesterday of Foxie eating her after-dinner treat (when J.B. and I worked at Fauna, we learned to give the chimpanzees “night packages” – paper bags handed out individually to each chimpanzee. At CSNW the bags have sugar-free cereal, dried fruit and nuts. The chimpanzees love this nightly treat!)
We were going through old posts the other day and realized that Jody doesn’t get much publicity on our blog. This is probably because she seems to be an independent gal. She spends a lot of time interacting with the other chimpanzees, and she often greets JB with a very excited grunt, but throughout the day she’s less likely to seek us out for play or grooming than the others. We’ll all have to get to know Jody more together.
Great news! We are making progress on the chimpanzees’ outdoor area. It’s coming along very well, and we can’t wait to get the chimpanzees out into the sunshine. Here’s a picture from this afternoon. 
